


The 1st Annual First Nonary Game Survivor Snowball Fight

by wires



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, also there are mild vlr spoilers in here but it's ztd spoiler free!, junpei shows up for like 5 seconds so i'm not gonna tag him, this is basically what it says in the title lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-24 01:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17091689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wires/pseuds/wires
Summary: “Alright, we all know the rules because we ain’t absolute idiots, but I’m still gonna go through them again, capiche?” Three nods. “Sibling teams, obviously. As long as you can throw the snowball with enough speed that it’s not just fallin’ to the ground, no guidelines on size. The team that hits their opponents the most times in the next fifteen minutes wins. If we somehow tie….I dunno, we’ll figure somethin’ out. Esper mind powers absolutely allowed, especially to coordinate with your teammate."The Fields and the Kurashikis have a snowball fight. Things go as poorly (or as well?) as you'd expect.





	The 1st Annual First Nonary Game Survivor Snowball Fight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reivolutionary-penguin](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=reivolutionary-penguin).



> happy holidays! this is a zecret santa 2018 gift for tumblr user reivolutionary-penguin, who had a prompt about the kurashikis and the fields having a snowball fight, which immediately caught my eye, haha. hope this lives up to your expectations!

“So, let me get this…the four of you are taking an international flight...in the middle of December…to _have a snowball fight?_ ”

Akane sighs before answering. “Look, Junpei, we all have to do some stuff for Crash Keys. Aoi especially has some clients that he needs to talk to. The fact that it’s also going to be snowing back in Japan didn’t influence our plans in any way.”

“So the fact that you’re holding ‘The 1st Annual First Nonary Game Survivor’s Snowball Fight’ was just coincidental?”

A smile passes her lips before she answers the voice on the phone with mock seriousness. “First of all, we are _absolutely not_ calling it that. That would draw too much attention from the wrong people. Second of all, it’s not going to be a snowball fight! We’re just going to be enjoying some time walking around in the snow. Aoi and I have been stuck in Nevada for almost three years now, we miss being cold!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Junpei says. “As if you four being competitive as all hell won’t make it turn into a snowball fight.”

“We’ll see on that, Jumpy. Not _everything_ we do is competitive.”

She hears a long breath turn into a short laugh, before the voice on the other end quietly says “Love ya, Kanny,” before hanging up.

_—_

Well, this had started poorly. Before they’d even started the competition, all of Light’s clothes had been lost in bag check. The loss wasn’t a monetary problem – nothing was ever going to be a monetary problem for them at this point – but Aoi still despised spending (“wasting”) money on doubles of anything, so it was absolutely a ‘wasting five hours on clothes shopping while a grumbling emo man is breathing down our necks’ problem. Once this and the other two problems of ‘damn none of us have gloves’ and ‘Clover, that’s not an appropriately thick coat for the weather’ were solved, though, it was down to business.

“Alright, we all know the rules because we ain’t absolute idiots, but I’m still gonna go through them again, capiche?” Three nods. “Sibling teams, obviously. As long as you can throw the snowball with enough speed that it’s not just fallin’ to the ground, no guidelines on size. The team that hits their opponents the most times in the next fifteen minutes wins. If we somehow tie….I dunno, we’ll figure somethin’ out. Esper mind powers absolutely allowed, especially to coordinate with your teammate. Light, if you need it, feel free to ask for clarification on who you’re throwin’ at _—_ ”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” he says with his usual half-smile. “I can tell all of you apart by your footsteps, even in snow.”

“ _—_ alright, great, that’s what I figured, didn’t need to interrupt me,” Aoi mutters. “Uhh, anyway, I think that’s it. Any questions?”

“I have one!” Clover pipes up, not waiting to be acknowledged before asking, “Can we make snowmen and do snow angels and have hot chocolate after this?”

“…I guess? Good luck gettin’ anyone else on board, though, and count me out, I’m not covering myself in snow voluntarily.” He doesn’t acknowledge her groan before turning to his left. “Yeah, sis?”

“Did we agree on a reward for the winner?”

“Shoot, no, I don’t think we did. We’ll figure it out later, I s’pose.”

“Gee, not like you to be completely unprepared! What’s this about prepping a few years in advance?”

“Unless you immediately wanna lose a point to the Fields, I suggest shuttin’ up.”

Akane giggles. _If you say so, Aoi._

He sighs a bit, only replying to her with a five-second mental groan, and rolls his eyes before continuing. “Alright. Guess we’re good to go. Head to your starting positions.”

With that, the four of them walk through to the corners of the park they’d selected for the fight. (Or, really, the park Akane had picked, after figuring out a location with minimal traffic and maximal space months beforehand, and that everyone else had agreed on, but that was neither here nor there.) They’d managed to arrive on a day where the snow was fresh, too, so the conditions really were ideal, minus all the problems they’d had before.

_Ready, everyone?_

Three mental nods.

_Three, two, one…_

_—_

The next fifteen minutes are a bit of a blur. Akane and Aoi had initially planned to keep track of each other’s movements via the field, and had attempted to make sure that, for the most part, they were behind the head of their current Field opponent. They had also both thought that Aoi, at the very least, would have some amount of camouflage from Clover when trying to hide from her from his white hair. The two of them, however, hadn’t realized that Clover would just mentally scream for five minutes straight, making it difficult for the two of them to actually communicate over the field feedback. (Apparently, her secret agent training had let her hone her skills to the extent that she could at least two-channel the field – not as good as Akane, but somewhat better than Aoi.) They’d also failed to account for the fact that Light could just hold snowballs in his prosthetic hand as long as he wanted without losing feeling from the cold, so no matter how close they got to him, thinking they were being surreptitious, he would turn and pelt them in the face twice each before they could hide and recover.

Five minutes in, and 3 points to the Fields’ 9, the Kurashiki siblings decide to make a tactical retreat to a particularly wooded area of the park. A bit of a waste of a time, maybe, but getting further behind isn’t an option.

 _Ughhhhh, this is impossible,_ Aoi groans. _Light can just backload the snowballs, and Clover’s got that...weird...screaming thing. I didnt even know that was a thing you could do with the field?_

Akane cocks an eyebrow. _Really? I’m pretty sure that me mentally screaming made up most of the First Nonary Game._

_Can we...not talk about that? We’ve got a snowball fight to win, sis._

_Yeah, yeah. We don’t have long, you know._

Unsurprisingly, Akane’s skills at formulating plans under pressure come in handy as the two of them formulate their next idea. Stealth was clearly not going to work, especially since neither Light nor Clover was even remotely going for that approach. Instead, they decide, the solution is to incapacitate their opponents before hurling snowballs as rapid-fire as they can. Akane would take Clover, taking a front-on approach by throwing a giant snowball in her face before slamming small snowballs into her back. Aoi would tackle Light from the back (or, at least, as near his back as he could manage) and push his ears into the snow, making sure to dull his senses, or at least his ears.

With their hasty plan pulled together, they walk back, assured of at least a draw if not success.

_—_

As it turns out, the two of them shouldn’t have been assured of anything in a battle against two other espers. While the Kurashikis had decided to switch from stealth to aggression, the Fields had decided to switch their own tactics. Or, well, Clover had. Light was still storing snowballs in his left jacket arm – it wasn’t a broken strategy, so why fix it? Clover, on the other hand, had decided to alter her constant screaming tactic to constant silence. _Let them communicate, but don’t let them think they aren’t being listened to. And let’s lie down in the snow, for good measure, so they can’t tackle us down._

So, at minute seven, two Fields, face down in a snowy field, try to crash the plans of the Kurashikis, simply by making themselves poor targets.

Keyword: ‘try.’ (In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best plan.)

_Hey, Aoi? Isn’t this kind of...weird? They’re both completely silent._

_I mean… a little?_ Akane treads as silently as she can manage through the snow. _It’s pretty likely that Clover changed her strategy of ‘just constantly screaming,’ but I can’t see what else they would be doing dif- oh._

_What?_

She pauses, muffling her laughter with her mittens. _I. I think I figured it out._

 _What? Sis, what are you- oh. Oh my god. pfFTTT he LOOKS LIKE A FREAKIN’ DUMBA_ _-_

Akane doesn’t pause to listen – hard to pause when you’re dropping a snowball the size of your arm on a human, after all. She’s already started running when she hears the inhuman shriek that suddenly comes from the now snow-covered Clover.

“Oh, you are SO gonna pay for that!”

_—_

_Clover._

_NOT NOW, DUDE!_

_Clover._

_WHAT DO YOU WANT, LIGHT._

_I am thinking that this was, perhaps, not the best plan._

_CALL ME ‘A BUFFOON OF THE HIGHEST PROPORTIONS’ LATER, NOW IS NOT THE TIME._

_I was not going to call you that, I merely wanted to suggest another pl-_

_YOU AREN’T GETTING ANOTHER PLAN. BRO, YOU’RE A PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICAL GENIUS, FIGURE IT OUT ON YOUR OWN._

_But_ _—_

Clover forcibly shuts off their field connection.

_—_

Light exhales – or, well, as best as he can exhale when he’s currently entombed by snow. To the best of his estimates, it’s been ten minutes now, and, at this rate, the Kurashikis are going to bypass their current score. He’s lost count of how many times Aoi has hit him in the back already, to the point that he barely even feels the next snowball. If it weren’t for the shouts of ‘COME AND GET THIS, EINSTEIN!’ vaguely echoing from above him, he thinks he could simply melt into the snow.

_Hah. Melt._

As much as he’s annoyed at his sister shutting off their connection – a wall he would normally try to bypass, if he wasn’t in such irritating circumstances – Light still believes he can regain the advantage. He just has to pull this off, and the Field will be leveled. So to speak.

While the victorious laughter above him continues, he pulls off his prosthetic arm, and digs out a small space for it. (Logically, kind of a bad idea to do that while surrounded by snow, but victory in esper snowball fights supersedes logic.) He then stuffs the loose jacket arm full of snow, packing it as tightly as he can before loosely knotting the end.

“Come --- get --!”

And come get he does. Light grabs his prosthetic before stabbing it upwards through the mound of snow above him, and, in one solid motion, springs upward, unties his jacket arm, and swings it towards Aoi’s face.

“What the _absolute f_ -” he starts, before he sputters and chokes on the snow that’s just been swung into his mouth.

Light gives a half smile, before putting his prosthetic back in its proper place and spending the remaining two minutes of the match pelting his opponent with as many snowballs as he can.

_—_

In the end, they all managed to lose count of their total hit numbers, so Akane is designated the scorekeeper, to her dismay. It makes sense, given the fact that she’s the only one of them who can literally slip through space and time, but still. _Not ideal_ , she groused, but she still does it anyway.

“Well, I got a total of 42 hits. Clover got...28? Aoi, you got 69 –”

“ _Nice.”_

“– Light, you got 87 somehow? Man, I don’t even know how that’s possible. Anyway. That’s, let’s see, Kurashikis 111 points, Fields...”

“That would be 115 points for us.”

“Woo _hoo_ , hot chocolate is on you two!”

“I never said I was gonna do that, you pink-haired brat!”

“It would be unwise to discourage Clover from this. Once she’s made up her mind, she never strays from her path.”

“Oh, God, do I know that too well,” Akane groans, remembering the unfortunate end where Clover’s axe met Junpei’s arm. “Homemade, or cafe hot chocolate?”

“Uh, homemade, duh!”

The four of them make their way back to their hotel (which is definitely not conspicuously expensive for a few twenty-somethings, what are you talking about, dear receptionist?), only somewhat dissatisfied with the outcome.

Overall, though? _A fair fight_

_—_

Back in Nevada, one man wearing plaid wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.

“Aw, _crap_ , I forgot to order the trophy!”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! as always, i'm at morphogenetic on tumblr!
> 
> (also, much thanks to batts/tumblr user zossie for grammar-proofing this last-minute. you're a lifesaver dude)


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